Before he Rode with the Own
by astrum202
Summary: Dom once trained to become a knight, but joined the Own instead. As he follows Kel's journey to knighthood he recalls the instances that made him give up earning a shield. Is quitting a weakness, or a strength?
1. The Girl

"Hey, Masbolle?"

"What is it Qasim?" Domitan of Masbolle turned towards the Bazhir tribesmen. His eyes were alight with excitement. He was nearly giddy. Dom found this extremely amusing as the Bazhir was never 'giddy' unless he was drunk.

The men were two of the newest to the King's Own. Qasim, who was in his late thirties was just completing his first year, Dom who was twenty had completed his first month. They found they liked each other's company, often discussing politics, strategy and, more than occasionally, women.

"There is a girl coming to the palace. To train as a knight! I did not think it would happen." Dom furrowed his eyebrows in surprise.

"Really? And how did you come by this interesting piece of information?"

"I heard my lord discussing it with Flyndan. Seems as though not many people in the palace know about it yet."

"Word will spread quickly. If it hasn't already." Dom turned back to the papers he was working on.

"Do you think she will make it?" Qasim asked. "I mean, not all of the boys do." Dow gripped the pen, his fingers suddenly white.

"If she puts in the work she will." He tried to write, but found he could barely move the pen. What was wrong with him? After all he knew a girl would come to the palace sooner or later. His uncle, Barid of Queenscove had told him (and the rest of the family) so countless times. After all countless boys had been pages…

He had been a page.

"Something wrong Masbolle?"

"What? Oh nothing Qasim. Just…lost in thought I guess."

"Hm. Well, we'll have to go and see if this girl is any good, eh. After all the Bazhir think of the Lioness as a hero. Maybe this girl will do just as well."

"Yes," said Dom, "it should be interesting to watch."

…..

Dom didn't remember much about his years as a page. He did not remember that he had had a lot of friends. He did not remember that as a first year he could best fourth years at tilting and archery. He did not remember that he had gone on when other pages washed out. He did not remember that even Lord Wyldon had, on many occasions, personally complimented him for his skills and chivalry.

When he had joined the Own he had washed out all of his memories of his time as a page. But there was one imbedded so deeply in his mind that he could never erase.

It had been in his second year as a page, just after the big examinations. There were no classes that day, and the pages still there had wandered through the halls or tested themselves out on fields against their peers. Dom remembered he had just won a tilting contest against a boy from Eerie Grove, when Laurence had approached him.

Laurence of Peregrine was, by any consideration, a model page, and Dom's idol. He was a fourth year who had passed his examinations with flying colors, and had received knight offers from both Gareth the Younger and the King. He was tall, with imperious blue eyes and a scar down his right cheek from a tussle with bandits the year before. He had sponsored Dom his first year as a page, teaching him the ropes and protecting him from…over zealous hazing. He believed in Dom, which was why Dom believed in himself.

"Masbolle," he called, his easy smile spreading over his face. Eagerly Dom got off his hose and raced over to the older boy, not even bothering to take off his padding.

"Laurence," he said happily, pretending to frown when the older boy tussled his hair. "How are you? Have you decided who you're going to squire for yet?"

"Oh, well, I think I'm going to wait for a field knight. I'm honored both the King and Sir Gareth want me as a Squire, but neither of them see much action."

"I understand," said Dom. Realizing he still wore his tilting gear, Dom began taking it off hurriedly. As he was bending down to remove his knee pads he felt the older boy's stare spreading over the back of his neck. "Laurence?" he asked.

"Hey Domitan, I want your help with something. Can you meet me and some other boys outside the library after dinner?" Dom grinned.

"You want my help?" he asked excitedly.

"Yes. I think so. Will you come?"

"Yeah, of course Laurence." The older boy grinned, tweaked Dom's nose and walked away, leaving him with a sense of pride he had never felt before.

There were three other boys with Laurence. Two of them were third year pages and the other was a Squire. None of them were very big, at least not as big as Laurence was. When Laurence gave their names Dom was surprised to find he had never heard of any of them before, and he only vaguely recognized their faces.

"Why did you bring the young one?" the squire asked, looking at Dom critically.

"He can help," said Laurence with a degree of authority. "Now come on, she'll be there any minute." The five of them walked nonchalantly past the library, following the hall way until they came to the stairwell that led to the part of the castle that housed the noble families. Waiting there, at the base of the steps, was a young girl of eleven.

She was skinny, but tall for her age, with mild brown eyes and a sharp, pointed chin. The other boys laughed when they saw her, though Dom couldn't tell why. The girl looked up excitedly when she saw them. Dom noticed she was holding a piece of paper in her hand, crumpled as though she had been clutching it nervously while waiting for them.

"Are you…are you the ones who left me this note?" she asked, her voice shy. The boys snickered while Laurence nodded, his face calm.

"Yes, we are." He turned towards the rest of them. "Gentlemen, this is lady Rosabelle. Now there is a rumor going around the palace that she wants to be a page next year and her parents are going to allow her to come and train with us." The boys burst out laughing. Dom stared at them, bewildered.

"And…?" he asked, failing to see what was so ridiculous about the situation.

"You said you were going to talk about it to me," piped up the girl, "it's in this note." Dom nodded, still failing to see what was so amusing. He thought it was right good of them to give the girl some pointers.

"Indeed," said Laurence, a smile forming on his face. "We thought it would be good to warn you…well…rather tell you, that you will not be a page next year."

The girl frowned. "Yes I am! Mommy and Daddy said I could, and I'm going to!" The three boys smirked, mimicking the girl's high pitched voice. Dom glared at them, disgusted by their childish behavior.

"That's not what I meant," continued Laurence. "What I meant was, we are not going to let you be a page next year." The girl clenched her fists.

"I don't care if you let me or not. I am going to be a page!" She stamped her foot, glaring angrily at the fourth year.

"Well, gentlemen, she's going to be a page," said Laurence reverently. "Then let us teach her the first lesson of being a page. And that is, when you get into a fight, always tell people you fell down." He nodded to the three other boys who took the girls and held her by her arms and shoulders, one of them clamping a hand over her mouth. Laurence stared at her, his face now dark. He turned to Dom who stood in shock when he saw what they were doing.

"No…no…" he stammered.

"What's wrong Dom?" Laurence asked.

"This is…this isn't right," his voice had begun to fail him. He looked at Laurence, not wanting to believe what they were about to do. "She's only a girl let, her be."

Laurence sighed and turned passively to Dom. "Look, I know what we're doing doesn't look right, but don't you see it's for the greater good? We're not going to hurt her too much, just enough so she knows it's ridiculous for her to try this." Dom just stood there, shaking his head. Laurence sighed. "Dom, you know women can't be knights. Somehow that Lioness woman got past everything, but a girl like this would just be a nuisance. A danger to good men. Don't you understand Dom? This is your first chance to protect the realm."

Dom looked at them, unable to believe what he was hearing. He looked at the girl, her eyes fearful. He could hear her muffled screaming and felt Laurence's hopeful look. "I know it's not right to beat up a defenseless girl at least two years younger than most of us," he said quietly.

"I see," said Laurence. "Well, don't interfere."

"Or we'll do the same to you," growled one of the boys. They turned away from Dom.

Dom couldn't do anything but stand there motionless as the lot of them began punching the girl. For some reason it sickened Dom that they took turns. "This isn't what a knight's supposed to do," he thought to himself. "This isn't right. This isn't for the good of the realm…"

Without really registering what he was doing, he threw himself on top of one of the pages. He screamed, falling backwards with Dom's weight. Both crashed to the floor, another one of the boys turning to attack Dom. The rest joined in leaving Laurence holding the girl. A wave of fury swept over Dom when he saw the girl's tears and the bruises on her face and neck. Struggling to free himself, he dragged down Laurence as the other boys tried to pull him back. Down went Laurence, but only for a moment. He hit Dom angrily across the face.

"Run!" screamed Dom. The girl looked at him fearfully before bolting up the stairs.

"Bitch!" screamed one of the boys. "You tell your parents about this and we will kill you!" The four of them then proceeded to thoroughly beat up Dom. Laurence delivered only a few of the punches, but the older page's disappointed look hurt more than any of the blows he received.

In a few minutes they heard footsteps and left Dom in the middle of the hall way struggling to get up. He was taken to Lord Wyldon's office, given the standard questions and gave the standard answer. Wyldon seemed surprised, not by his answer but how thoroughly the boy was beaten up. When asked about it, Dom said nothing, taking his punishment work in silence.

Every time he saw Laurence as a squire he heard others talking about what a great knight he would be. When he returned from field work (he had waited for another offer) Dom still had the urge to go and sit with him, to ask his forgiveness and beg to be his protégé again. Then he would remember the girl's bruised face. The girl who might have made a fine knight if they had let her have her chance. He would shake his head, disgusted with himself. "If that is a great knight," he said, over and over, "then I never want to be one."

…

"Dom," asked Qasim, "are you alright?

"What? Oh, I'm fine," he said. "Just thinking about things." Suddenly it swept over him. A girl had decided to become a knight. He couldn't help but let a grin spread over his face. He thought of what the great Sir Laurence would think when he heard the news. Suddenly he began chuckling.

"Dom?" Qasim looked at him uneasily. "You are crying." Dom shook his head, continuing to chuckle as tears began to stream down his face.

A/N: Hey look who's back from the dead! So I've been tossing fanfic ideas around for Ptos and this is the only one I have yet to finish an entire chapter for. Hopefully over the course of this fanfic I will not turn Dom into a whiny emo kid...I'm not entirely sure that's possible actually. Anyway basic idea behind the fanfic was explaining what Dom did as a page and squire and why he decided to join the Own instead of becoming a knight. Not going to say what the next chapter's about, but it will include a minor, rather unlikeable character from Squire. Thanks for reading.


	2. Choices

Dom yawned loudly, smiling when several other men in the squad followed his action. He brushed back his hair, still wet from when he had hastily washed his face before coming out to the courtyard. The sun had just begun to make its way over the tree tops of the Royal Forest, and were it not for the tragedy of the village they were about to go and aid he would have called it a lovely morning.

"Masbolle." Dom turned to find Qasim beside him. He gestured over to a rider with clipped brown hair, smaller than most of the men, astride a gigantic roan horse.

"By the gods," whispered Dom, "he actually chose her." The two men grinned.

Dom rode up to her, examining every inch of her and her gargantuan animal before offering her a turnover. The squire's uniform was new, barely wrinkled. She didn't seem all that bewildered by the situation, as many new members of the Own were when summoned this early, but judging by what Meathead had written him she was probably hiding any confusion.

She looked up at him smiling slightly. She had only come to the Own a day or two ago, and already they were riding out on a mission. Well, that was military life, always hitting you with surprises. "She'll have to learn to deal with them," thought Dom to himself. "She's had to deal with a full load of them already."

This was the girl Raoul of Goldenlake had chosen to be his squire. This was the girl that his cousin Neal believed would become, not only the next Lady Knight, but one of the greastest knights since the Immotals War. This was Keladry of Mindelan.

"I see you've still got your overgrown horse," he said, examining the malicious looking Peachblossom. "Domitan of Masbolle at your service, Squire Keladry. Your page-sponsor was a certain mad cousin of mine."

"You're related to Neal?" she asked, her smile widening.

"Sadly yes. I call him Meathead. He's written me so much about you I feel like I know you. Call me Dom."

"Kel," she said, shaking his large hand. Dom smiled. He did not tell her that he already thought of her as Kel. He did not tell her that he had kept every one of Neal's letters about her. He did not tell her that he had read and re-read them, looking for any hint that she might give up.

She was a tall girl, almost as tall as Neal was. She was well muscled, had an air of discipline about her as well as a fierce determination in her eyes. She was certainly an interesting choice for a squire. She was obviously a good fighter, had a different background than the other boys and, from what Neal had told him, had no misconceptions about the "glory" of being a knight.

Unlike himself.

Raoul gave the signal to ride out. Dom watched Kel ride away as she went to begin her first real day as a squire.

…

Even though many knights would have gladly taken Dom on as a squire he had taken the first offer he had received. There was already talk of war brewing between Tortall and Carthak. There had been attempted rebellion in Dunlath. And then there were the immortals that had seemed to appear out of dreams themselves, terrorizing the armed forces as well as civilians.

Dom had wanted to fight as soon as he could. He had wanted to serve his country. He had wanted to be a hero.

And so, when Burchard of Stone Mountain had offered to take him on as a squire, less than a day after he passed his big examinations, Dom had accepted.

Dom had looked good in the colors of Stone Mountain. He walked through the courtyard towards the stables, a gallant-looking young man in pale blue. He noticed, with a certain degree of pride, the noblemen who looked at him with approval as he walked by them. He was fifteen as a first-year squire; strong and determined.

Sir Burchard had already been commanded to take a small squadron of soldiers to aid a village that had been attacked by some of the Immortal creatures threatening the realm, these ones called Spidrens. Dom carried his packs to the stable, buzzing with excitement to be riding off on a mission already. His fingers shook as he saddled his horse, a large stallion given to him by Sir Burchard he had named Pounder. A man, a foot-soldier by the look of him, smiled.

"Eager to be riding out young man?" he asked Dom. The boy shook his head excitedly. "Well, these people certainly need as much help as they can get in these times." He nodded at Dom before walking out of the stable. Dom smiled, feeling a sense of pride rush over him. He was already going to begin a knight's work. He was going to help people.

He led Pounder out of the stable towards the group of men that were assembling in front of Sir Burchard. His knight master sat astride a large black horse, gazing imperiously at the soldiers before him. As Dom approached them he saw the man who had spoken to him in the stable and waved. The man waved back until a man next to him whispered something in his ear. Hesitantly, the man put his hand down, turning away from Dom.

As he walked past them, frowning, he heard whispers pass him. "Squire to Sir Burchard-"

"Shouldn't talk to him. We don't need any trouble but what he'll give us already."

"I bet he's just like Burchard."

"Won't be long till he goes treating us like filth."

"Knights, all the same."

Dom, frightened by the whispers hurried over to his knight master. "Ah, there you are Masbolle," he said. He looked at his men. "Not the best command we could have gotten. In fact a rather poor one if you ask me. Stupid. Knights shouldn't have to lead rabble like this."

"Sir?" asked Dom, trying to keep his voice under control. "They all seem like perfectly capable soldiers." Sir Burchard glared at him.

"These men? They think just because they're soldiers now they're above themselves. There was once a time when the crown had standards for the men they let serve it. And it was only men." Dom remained silent, mounting Pounder. "It's ridiculous," his knight master continued, "letting women into these Queen's Riders. The Queen and the King's champions. Mark my words the reasons these immortals escaped are just proof that the gods have turned on us."

"I have a female relative in the Riders," remarked Dom, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice. Who was this man to question how the kingdom was run? His own soldiers didn't even like him. "And we were told that the Immortals were released by Carthaki mages." Sir Burchard was about to reply when the sound of hoof beats filled the courtyard.

Two squadrons of men dressed in the blue and silver of the King's Own rode up next to the soldiers. They were mostly young men, a decent number of them Bazhir. At the head of them rode the largest man Dom had ever seen. He had a merry face and curly black hair, and talked and joked with some of his men. The rest looked at him with admiration or approval. Even soldiers in Sir Burchard's squad whispered excitedly among themselves when they saw him. It was Sir Raoul of Golden Lake and Malorie's Peak, knight commander of the King's Own.

Only Sir Burchard watched in distaste when the men rode away after getting their supplies. "There's an example for you right there," he told Dom. "It used to be that a post in the King's Own was a respectable profession. Now look at how undisciplined they are with Sir Raoul as their commander. They even let Sand rats into their ranks." He pronounced Raoul's name disdainfully. "I'm not sure what's worse," he continued, "these men we're stuck with, or those."

Dom looked at his saddle thoughtfully. He had never seen two more different men. Raoul obviously was on good terms with his soldiers and they respected him. Sir Burchard treated his soldiers harshly, and they viewed him with distrust even fear. Suddenly he realized the mistake he had made. Sir Burchard was no leader, and he was most certainly no hero.

"Knights, all the same." Was that really true? We're all knights, at least the ones that weren't famous like the Lioness or Sir Raoul, all arrogant and mean-spirited like Sir Burchard? He thought back to his time as a page, the knights he met. How many stories had he heard of knights that took advantage of women, verbal attacked the king and queen, and viewed common soldiers with disdain. He thought of the squire that had been with Laurence when they attacked that girl.

The Chamber of the Ordeal had let men such as Burchard and that boy through to become knights. Wasn't it supposed to stop men like them? What did being a knight mean if you counted men like that among your ranks?

Was life in the Own that different from life as a knight? Dom watched them ride away, their white burnooses trailing after them and their chain mail glittering in the sun. They did great things. They helped people. Their leader was a good one, and you became a leader by passing real tests, not some nightmare in a room.

Realizing what he was thinking, Dom shook his head vigorously. No. He had a duty. No, he had promised his family he would become a knight, no matter what. He had a duty to them, and a duty to the realm. He had chosen this path, and he would stick to it.

Despite the hardships. Despite the disadvantages. And despite Sir Burchard.

When Sir Burchard gave the signal to move out, Dom followed, his face cold and stoic.

…..

It was rather grim work, digging graves. Even Dom's good humor could not keep him from thinking about the bodies they would lay to rest here. "It needs to be done," he told himself. Almost mechanically he moved the shovel up and down alongside the villagers of Haresfield. "It's harder for them," he remembered, "They're burying their dead."

At last he paused, standing to wipe the sweat off his brow. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Kel and helping a small child and her mother working in the ruins of a house. The woman looked tired and her eyes were red and puffy from weeping, but she still smiled gratefully as Kel helped her shoulder a heavy load. Dom smiled, just a little bit and went back to shoveling.

She had been a very good choice indeed.

A/N: Uh, sorry for the rather uneventful chapter. I promise you the next one will be far more interesting. A note on the conversation between Dom and Kel, it is taken from the book but I shortened it, just in the interest of not making it too confusing. And if you are interested, yes Sir Burchard is the father of a certain annoying pretty-boy git that appears in Squire. Well, Tamora Pierce owns all of these characters. Watch for the next chapter and please review!


	3. Hollow

Dom stood in the very back of the Chapel of the Ordeal, leaning against one of the stone walls. He ignored the odd feeling he got whenever he came in here, how even just being in the chapel made him think about the things he feared. He took pride in knowing that the Chamber was not one of them.

He never came in here unless he knew the squire that was being tried personally. He had watched every one of his year mates pass through unharmed. He had watched Laurence emerge, more battered than most, but still fit enough to accept his shield. The only reason he was here today was because of that boy Vinson. Ever since the Chamber had released him a broken man people had wondered if others were to emerge alive, insane, or dead. Dom was simply interested to see if the Chamber was raising the standards for the men who were to become knights.

And he was interested to see if his former knight-master's son, who according to Neal was every bit as loathsome as his father, had the brass to stand up to the Chamber.

Dom looked up towards the doors as they opened slowly. He did not flinch at the sound the body made as it fell to the floor. There was Joren of Stone Mountain, as handsome and strong as Dom himself had been as a squire, lying at the top of the steps to the Chamber of the Ordeal.

The crowd broke out in excited whispers as a healer, went up to Joren's body and felt for a pulse. "Dead," he proclaimed . A woman shrieked and an older man with white blonde hair raced up the steps and clutched the boy to his chest. After stifling a few sobs he screamed.

"That BITCH!" Dom did not have to wonder who it was Burchard of Stone Mountain cursed between his sobs. With a small pang of pity for the old man, Dom turned and walked out of the Chapel.

…..

"Bastards! Each and every one of you!" Burchard of Stone Mountain screamed at a line of five men, each of them with their hands tied behind their back. "None of you deserve to be counted among the soldiers of the Crown!" He went over to one, trying to rip off his tunic which bore the symbol of the crown. He stumbled, blinded by his own tears and collapsed on his knees in front of them, shaking. Next to them was a body wrapped in a blood soaked cloth. It held Robert of Stone Mountain, Burchard's youngest brother.

Dom watched, his face white. He had just begun his fourth year as a squire, and the Immortals War had just officially begun. He had already seen many men claimed by what soldiers called "The Kracken." Most of them had been young men though, first year knights and a few squires. Robert had been a knight for at least ten years. Now he was simply a battered corpse, resting in a rag. "You should have been able to protect him!" he railed, "How is it that the only good man among you is cut down! You deserted him! You left him to die!" He was on his knees again, pounding the ground in grief. "He was to be the greatest of us…" he said quietly.

Dom was unsure what to do. He might have comforted Burchard, had he not raged against these men. But he had never seen someone so distraught with grief.

"Thirty-lashes. Each of them," he told the man at arms. "I want them to pay in blood for their incompetence."

"Is this what has become of our country?" he asked Dom as the men were led away. "Have we strayed so far from the will of the Gods that the best of us are cut down before their prime?"

"We're at war," Dom replied, trying to keep his voice calm. "It happens to even the best soldiers. Inside, his mind raged. Those men had done the best they could! The realm needed every man it could get, and this is how soldiers were repayed? Beaten because one man had had the misfortune of being killed.

"Quiet," said Burchard icily. "You've spent too much time listening to progressives. You don't know what it was like, how glorious Tortall was, before it fell into the hands of…of heathens."

"Brutally punishing innocent men for what happens every day in war is not glorious!" Dom shouted suddenly. Burchard looked at him, shock and anger on his face.

"What did you say?"

"I said that this isn't right," Dom continued. "You're just a cruel and bitter old man upset with how everything is run!" He fell backward as Burchard hit him across the face. He looked up, shaking more from the surprise of what his knight master had done, of what he had done than because of any actual pain.

"Is this what is to become of the realm's knights?" Burchard asked quietly, rage in every aspect of his voice. Dom looked down and muttered something under his breath. Growling Burchard reached down and yanked Dom's head up by the hair, forcing him to look into his chilly ice blue eyes. "What did you say boy?"

"If they let you be a knight then I never want to be one!" Dom bellowed at his knight master. Dom got up and bolted away from the camp, leaving his knight master staring after him.

"The Chamber will have your life boy!" he called after Dom. Burchard turned away in disgust, only to find a large group of soldiers and King's Own staring at him. Angry and full of grief, Burchard turned away and trudged back to his tent.

There was one inn at the town where the soldiers were camped. Dom only had to ask a few people before he was sitting at a corner table, an almost empty tankard in his hand. He had only drunk once before, and had shied away from it upon learning that if he drank more than two mugs he became tipsier than Sir Myles at a ball. Despite that, he needed to take his mind off of what had just happened. There was going to be hell to pay when he went back to Sir Burchard. He didn't want to, but the only other option was backing down from the Ordeal and going back to Masbolle a shamed man. Both options were horrifying to him. He knew he would have to come to grips with one of them, but for now he was content to let the liquor numb his mind a little.

"May I sit here?" Dom looked up into the eyes of a big burly man with dark eyes. It took Dom a moment to recognize the man before him, but when he did he nearly fell out of his seat.

Raoul of Goldenlake smiled cheerfully at the young man before gently reaching down to pull the tankard away from him. "Don't drink too much of this boy," he said. "It may turn you into someone you don't like." The Knight Commander pulled out a chair, sitting next to a bewildered Dom. He called over one of the waiters, ordering two cups of lemonade.

"Sir Raoul," Dom said a little uncertainly, "When did you get in?"

"Me and two other squads of the Own just rode in this afternoon," he said calmly. He looked at Dom, his dark eyes locking with Dom's blue ones. "Just in time to see that little spectacle you and your knight master put on."A man brought over two cups of lemonade. Raoul thanked him and paid for both, pushing the other one towards Dom.

"You-you heard that?" Dom asked, blushing.

"Every word," Raoul said calmly. He took a sip of his lemonade, his eyes never leaving Dom. "What that knight did was wrong," he continued, "But it does a discredit to my status to believe that every man who passes through the Chamber is like that." Dom shook his head, trying not to frown.

"None of them should be like that," he said. "Knights should be, should be ethical and have to work to gain the respect of their men, not demand it. The entire concept of the Chamber, it makes sense but what does being a knight mean if It lets men such as him through." Dom stopped, looking at Raoul anxiously, realizing he might have offended him. The knight commander simply shrugged.

"You're an idealist. Idealists have trouble in military life. You could just work to be a better knight, do your best to make the system better." Dom stared at the table.

"I don't know…after seeing the type of men I have…I don't want to be a knight anymore. I would hate it, knowing that I might not deserve to look after the lives that are in my hands." Dom smiled, grimly. "If I could work like you, in the Own, then I would know that I got to where I was because of hard work, not because it's how it's been done for centuries."

"Well why don't you join up?" Raoul asked him. Dom looked up in surprise.

"I can't sir," he said. "I'm an oldest son, I have to be a knight. It's the way sons earn honor for their family." Raoul sighed looking over the boy. He was a fine fellow, and would no doubt make a brilliant knight. "He's smart," Raoul thought, "Smarter than his idealism."

"Honor or not either way you'd be doing a service to the realm," Raoul told him. "What's your name, squire?"

"Domitan of Masbolle," he replied, looking at the man. Raoul nodded to him and got up to leave.

"As soon as this blasted war is over I plan on taking new recruits out into the Bazhir desert," he told Dom. "There's always room for a strong lad like you among our ranks." With that Raoul left the smoke and bustle of the inn, leaving Dom with a tankard of lemonade and the first bit of confidence he'd had since becoming a squire.

…

Dom waited silently in the small alcove of the stairway that led to the chambers of the nobles. His eyes and ears were fixed on the hallway, waiting for the sound of footsteps or the sight of an older man dressed in mourning black. It was the same spot where he had fought Laurence all those years ago. He felt a mixture of pride and shame, knowing he was act as he should have acted a long time ago.

Burchard didn't notice Dom until he had reached the alcove. He was bent and broken now Dom realized, his once sleek blonde hair beginning to thin and fade, his body shaking from grief and exhaustion. His blue eyes were now red and puffy with tears. He turned towards Dom, snarling as he did so.

"What are you doing here, boy?" he asked. "Come to lord over the ungodly defeat of my only child."Dom clenched his fist, looking Burchard straight in the eye.

"You dare to attack my friends again, I'll make sure there's hell to pay." Burchard stared at him, his eyes growing wide in rage.

"You-You're friends with that demon!" he spat. "What did your heathen task master send you? I should have expected this, a damned failure like yourself, a whoreson, bastard, insolent brat, cohorts with that-that" He stopped, his breath vanishing as Dom slammed his shoulder into the wall. His eyes were narrowed in fury and disdain for the man and for once he saw Burchard look at him with something like fear.

"You touch her with your filthy hands again, I'll make sure you join your son's worthless carcass in the Chamber." He stopped, realizing that Burchard had begun to weep again. The old knight tried to mumble something but it was lost in his sobs. Dom sighed, letting him go, and began to walk away.

"The only blessing you ever got is that you never became a knight! The Chamber wouldn't have left anything of you!" Burchard called after him. Dom stopped, turning around to face the man.

"Then you may congratulate yourself on a job well done." Dom left, feeling sincerely sorry for the man who now sobbed like a child on the stone steps.

A/N: So, I sort of tried to portray Joren's dad in a sympathetic light here, but I don't think he came out all too likable. Oh well, I'm glad with how this chapter came out. Glad I could actually throw Raoul in there. Up next is everyone's favorite grumpy training master! After the next chapter I think I'll have one short one where he had Kel actually talk. The only thing I'm really debating is if I want to throw a flashback in the last one. Probably will, depending if I can break up the Kel/Dom conversation. Thanks so much for reading this far. If there's any one figure you want to see I would probably be willing to add him/her.


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